Comments on: Fact checking the death panel scare

By: Warren

Warren — Wed, 30 May 2018 21:28:34 +0000

john – where is it written in these regulations that big government has anything to do with these advanced directive conversations?

If you find it, please enlighten us. I was unable to find where Medicare would be involved at all except to pay the physician for the time expended.

I agree with you that government may not interfere with personal and family decisions and nothing in this regulation will allow any such interference. Please point out in the regulation where you think this happens.

By: stephen

stephen — Wed, 30 May 2018 21:28:34 +0000

There are no extremists. There are liars and those of us who try to cope with their lies. Liars paid for by the insurance industry. I only hope these ‘Christian’ groups quoted can explain their lies to the Maker in whom they claim to believe. And I hope that they never discover the hospice movement. My mother died in my arms thanks to their work. These Christian front groups would have shut her, and me, out of end of life care.

It’s about time you people grew up.

By: Just Me

Just Me — Wed, 30 May 2018 21:28:34 +0000

As a healthcare professional, and maybe even more so as a home health care provider I beg all patients to establish advance directives. Many times I have heard people express a wish for no intervention should the end of life occur but because they didn’t take the time to make their wishes legally known they undergo CPR, ventilators and other extreme measures that often do not extend quality life but merely cause suffering before a delayed death. In my position, if I am in your home and you do not have written, signed orders stating you do not want CPR and your heart stops I have to give CPR, no matter how medically fragile you are, no matter how many of your ribs I break, no matter how unlikely you are to benefit from this. Only a small percentage of people who have CPR performed fully recover. Many people don’t want it done but without that advance directive I have no legal option. Sadly one of the reasons that people don’t have these papers in place are that doctors don’t have time to iniate the discussion and patients don’t know who to talk to, how to talk to them, or how to bring it up. Some have told me it feels like saying you want to die when that’s not the case at all. From 10 years of working with Medicare patients I know that most have very clear ideas of what they want to be done, but many don’t know how to get those ideas into writing so they are automatically “full codes”. Not long ago I had a patient who had just had open heart surgery rapidly decline while I was seeing him. I was praying that the ambulance arrived before he quit breathing because he was declining that rapidly. He did not have directives and CPR would have ruptured all the repair done to his chest following surgery, leading to all kinds of complications and probably not saving his life. Months later we discussed that day and I told him how afraid I was that he would not make it until I had assistance. He was horrified because he wanted no interventions, but he didn’t have that in writing.

Medicare pays a sum per visit, unlike traditional insurances where my doctor bills for how long he sees me. This doesn’t add cost, it just allows people to specify what they want.

It doesn’t take a physician and it is not a decision the physician makes. A physician cannot even decide to place a patient on hospice care (no further interventions to sustain life but all measures to maintain comfort); the patient requests it and the physician signs a statement that the patient is likely to live less than 6 months. If the patient lives longer than hospice continues until a joint decision is reached between the patient and hospice that hospice isn’t appropriate.

If you prefer to do it yourself you can with a notary signature. One format I like a lot is called Five Wishes and can be found at http://www.agingwithdignity.org/five-wishes.php It’s done by you, is specific yet lets you have space to personalize, and then in some states your signature is all it takes; in others it requires a notary. You then give this to your healthcare providers.

We live in a world with constant access to information. Five Wishes is easy for an internet savvy person to find, given the desire. But for someone who has never touched a computer? They need someone to be assigned to initiate this conversation.

By: Steven Ertelt

Steven Ertelt — Wed, 30 May 2018 21:28:34 +0000

Warren,

Thanks for the piece, it’s good to have all of our ducks in a row, especially on something so contorversial.

The comments from the people we quoted stand for themselves and, as is the case with any news story, don’t necessarily represent the views of LifeNews.com.

Our position is probably somewhere in the middle: On the one hand, we’ve provided news coverage about the positive ways in which advanced directives can help people preserve medical care. On the other, we’ve covered how governments in places like England and Canada ration care when the government begins taking over or influencing the health care system — as has just happened here.

As you say: “The question is: Will they happen with the patient’s wishes known or not?”

That’s the $50,000 question isn’t it. Will doctors work with patients to help them design directives that promote care or ration it? That’s why NRLC, one of the groups you mentioned in your piece, has a Will to Live project that is designed to promote care that is positive and life-affirming without revoking lifesaving medical treatment.

What should also be noted are the ways in which NRLC warned lawmakers that the ObamaCare bill presented rationing and other treatment concerns from a pro-life perspective. (http://www.lifenews.com/2010/02/22/bio-3058)

It got lost in the abortion-funding debate but the concerns are real and legitimate. They and the other groups mentioned above may have concerns with the “death panels” and I don’t know that that’s the case.

Although it is warped and twisted in the abortion debate, surely we can agree that, here, these advanced directives should be between a patient and his doctor — without governmental decision-making or interference — and without giving doctors financial incentives to have the talks.

Thanks for all you do for the cause, Warren, it is greatly appreciated.

Steven Ertelt, Editor

LifeNews.com

By: ken

ken — Wed, 30 May 2018 21:28:33 +0000

The problem with the health care debate is the extremists on both sides. The anti-gov. types give extreme anecdotes about how someone in england didn’t get necessary treatment. While the pro-gov types give anecdotes about how a medical insurance co. in the u.s. denied coverage for necessary treatment.

Sadly, I’ve seen far to many instances of the “I’ve got mine, screw everybody else” philosophy in this debate.